I chased a Algos around Nisuwa last week. I was having a real hard time catching him as he'd always "warp away" before I landed inside the plex. I'd have him on short range scan as I activated the plex gate and when I landed, he wasn't there! It was highly frustrating until I managed to warp into the plex whilst he was still there and I saw him vanish. He wasn't warping off, he was cloaking!
OK, if you need to go to the bathroom to throw up I'll wait.
Now that was bad enough, a destroyer with a cloak. However later it got a lot worse. Fellow QCat pilot Rabugento was able to do what I hadn't be able to do. He caught him and killed him. Below is a screenshot of the kill-mail. Go on, click it to make it bigger and have a look.
OK?
Done? Have a drink to wash the taste away!
Yes your eyes were not deceiving you. That is a militia pilot in an Algos with a cloaking device, an ECM burst module and a warp core stab!
A limited case I hear you say?
No.
Almost one hour earlier I caught this....
Yes, its a Thrasher with a cloak.
And lets not even dwell on this fitting who I caught in the same session.
These are just a few from my weekends Eve. So why are we seeing this massive spike in shit-fits? Well it all started in December and comes down to loyalty points....
In December Gall Mil announced it would have a concentrated effort to capture the whole warzone. It would be our "Christmas gift" to everyone. And we plexed, and plexed and plexed and plexed. My god that is boring! Slowly but surely we advanced. Some systems such as Rakapas put up a great fight, but it was futile as the big green frog steam-roller squished the squids.
During this time we didn't see many cloaks or stabs. We were at warzone control level 4 and the squids were at level 1. Then in January we did it. The last system was captured and we'd taken the whole war zone. After weeks of constant plexing the Gallente Militia breathed a huge sigh of relief.... and stopped plexing.
It was also in January that Ev0ke joined the Caldari Militia with a large group of fresh-faced pilots. Things swung about pretty quickly. With the Gallente burnt out, the Caldari soon recaptured a lot of their systems. Soon they were out of warzone control level one, the area where LP rewards are crap and had enough systems to gain warzone control level 2, where standard LP rewards kick in. With a bit more of a push they touched on level three where LP rewards are bonused.
That was the event that opened the flood-gates. Caldari LP were suddenly worth grinding again. There was a spike in squid activity with many more pilots logging on. Why? Because, of all the LP's in game Caldari are seen as best. Why? Let me ask you a question, actually I need to ask two.
Q. Who buys the most faction modules?
A. Level 4 carebear farmers.
And question two...
Q. Give a common lvl 4 missioning fit.
A. Drake or CNR with missiles and shield tank.
Yes that's right. Missiles and shield tanks are the most popular level 4 mission fits. So what LP store sells nice missile and shield mods. Yup, the Caldari.
So suddenly all the farmers log on their faction war alts to start farming the LP. The stabbed t1 frigates, the destroyers with cloaks. They all come out of the woodwork. Smeg, even some of the more truthful players call their alt characters "Farmer" and say they don't fight in local (yes, people actually do use local).
So the sad fact is that as soon as the Caldari hit a half decent level of warzone control and LP farming becomes worthwhile we are swamped with farmers. But what can we do about it? We can use Cockbag Thrashers to camp gates, we can chase them until they derp and we snag them. But in the end the only true solution is to capture systems, drive down their warzone control level and watch them send their farming alts into hibination until its worthwhile for them to start farming.
Currently the Gallente are still fat and bloated from the December/January push, I myself have over 2.5m LP's. We are still burnt out from all that plexing. But soon (TM) we'll get back into it, drive the Caldari warzone down, take most the systems, get burnt out, the Caldari will fight back, get their WZC high, the farmers will come back, the Caldari will capture most systems......
To quote Battlestar Gallactica, all this has happened before, all of this will happen again.
In December Gall Mil announced it would have a concentrated effort to capture the whole warzone. It would be our "Christmas gift" to everyone. And we plexed, and plexed and plexed and plexed. My god that is boring! Slowly but surely we advanced. Some systems such as Rakapas put up a great fight, but it was futile as the big green frog steam-roller squished the squids.
That was the event that opened the flood-gates. Caldari LP were suddenly worth grinding again. There was a spike in squid activity with many more pilots logging on. Why? Because, of all the LP's in game Caldari are seen as best. Why? Let me ask you a question, actually I need to ask two.
Q. Who buys the most faction modules?
A. Level 4 carebear farmers.
And question two...
Q. Give a common lvl 4 missioning fit.
A. Drake or CNR with missiles and shield tank.
Yes that's right. Missiles and shield tanks are the most popular level 4 mission fits. So what LP store sells nice missile and shield mods. Yup, the Caldari.
So suddenly all the farmers log on their faction war alts to start farming the LP. The stabbed t1 frigates, the destroyers with cloaks. They all come out of the woodwork. Smeg, even some of the more truthful players call their alt characters "Farmer" and say they don't fight in local (yes, people actually do use local).
So the sad fact is that as soon as the Caldari hit a half decent level of warzone control and LP farming becomes worthwhile we are swamped with farmers. But what can we do about it? We can use Cockbag Thrashers to camp gates, we can chase them until they derp and we snag them. But in the end the only true solution is to capture systems, drive down their warzone control level and watch them send their farming alts into hibination until its worthwhile for them to start farming.
Currently the Gallente are still fat and bloated from the December/January push, I myself have over 2.5m LP's. We are still burnt out from all that plexing. But soon (TM) we'll get back into it, drive the Caldari warzone down, take most the systems, get burnt out, the Caldari will fight back, get their WZC high, the farmers will come back, the Caldari will capture most systems......
To quote Battlestar Gallactica, all this has happened before, all of this will happen again.
Don't believe me? Why are the kills not proportional and why are all these systems left vulnerable and not captured?
It's a mess in my humble opinion. The sheer amount of horrible fits, cloaks on proud ships and 4x stabbed cruisers is enough to make me terribly sad. Although, whatever they send we'll just keep exploding.
ReplyDelete1 warp stab per ship is an idea. I wish someone had promoted that idea ;)
DeleteAnd Raptor Jesus did shed tears at what the warzone has become. Good news though, they're running out of systems to farm.
ReplyDeleteBe interesting to see if they do have problems farming whether the farmers will sod off for a while.
DeleteAlso Good news, Evoke keeps losing member corps....
ReplyDeletehttp://evemaps.dotlan.net/alliance/Ev0ke/events
Yup, there has been a downturn there.
DeleteIt's a nice bit of fantasy, this post, but it's not entirely correct, as the saying goes.
ReplyDeleteI'm relatively new to Caldari FW and I can state for a fact that these types of fits are not exclusive to Caldari FW. We've been seeing an astonishing amount of stabbed and cloaked Gallente Militia pilots in plexes. My corp couldn't believe it; left us all scratching our heads plus a wierd queasy feeling in the stomach.
I also like how the Caldari efforts are denied, that the reason why the Gallente are losing systems rapidly has nothing to do with the efforts of the Caldari, but is rather due to the Gallente being burned out, or not needing to plex because they have so much LP, or it's Evoke. But certainly not due to the Caldari pilots, heavens no.
Nice bit of propaganda, there.
Now, that's not saying that everything you said is false. I'm quite sure there are masses of Caldari FW pilots who only farm for LP and don't care about anything else (just as there are masses of Gallente pilots that do the same), but please don't try to make it out that there'se some organized conspiracy to leave systems vulnerable. Well, maybe there is, but if so, my corp certainly hasn't been let in on the secret.
Those systems are vulnerable because 1) the Gallente are retreatig faster than we can advance and 2) there's only so much structure bashing that a small-ish group can do at any one time.
That, and not all the Gallente are rolling over and letting the Caldari waltz through the warzone, not by a long shot.
All in all, it's certainly much more fun than sov warfare out in null, though I can do without the propaganda metagame :)
I guess we'll agree to disagree.
DeleteI'm not saying every squid is fitted like that. But lets look at two of my kills yesterday:-
http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=16551730 o.O
http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=16560654 O.O
There are some corps, like Templis Dragonaors who are here for a fight. But they are lost in the farmers. If there are Gallente flying that crap post it and name and shame them!
The Gallente must be retreating like snails then, all those vulnerable systems but no bunker bashing? :)
Once again I would like to state that this is an issue for both sides. May I present this lovely gem:
ReplyDeletehttp://ccdm.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=16569422
Is it bad that I want my side to lose Tier 3?
Not it's not bad and I understand. Also I wish we didn't get faction hits for shooting our own side when I see fits like that -.-
Delete